The process of CLPs (Constituency Labour Parties) nominating their preferred candidates in the Labour leadership contest is almost at an end, with tomorrow the deadline for nominations.

The nominations have no direct influence on the result, but the number of CLP nominations each candidate has received is shown in the leaflet that accompanies ballot papers, so they play a role in establishing the relative credibility of each candidate.

Clearly the Owen Smith campaign is desperately scrabbling for credibility.

Luke Akehurst, bastion of Progress (the shadowy ‘party within a party’ promoting right-wing views in the Labour party), avowed opponent of Jeremy Corbyn and failed 2016 NEC candidate (who still sees fit to call Corbyn ‘unelectable’), has been writing to CLPs reminding them that the party’s rules give them an option to exclude constituency membership from the nomination ballot.

A terrible affront to democracy has taken place in full view of Britain’s ‘free press’ and they have turned a collective blind eye. Estimates suggest that as many as 180,000 Labour Party members have been denied a vote in the leadership election, either as a result of suspension or expulsion, or because they joined the Party after January 2015. A further 60,000 simply didn’t receive a ballot paper. It is widely accepted that the overwhelming majority of these are supporters of Jeremy Corbyn.

For the print and broadcast media to ignore this gross injustice is bad enough, but it goes much further than that. They have actually been complicit in it. The BBC in particular has been at the forefront in laying down covering fire for bureaucratic attempts to nobble the election. They have routinely peddled unsubstantiated stories about plots, intimidation, misogyny and anti-semitism.

Anyone paying even the slightest attention to social media (mainstream media have almost completely ignored it) over recent weeks cannot fail to be aware of the fact that the right-wing section of the Labour machinery has been busily depriving voters of their right to vote in the current leadership contest on the most spurious of grounds, including full members and those who have been gouged for £25 for the privilege. However, it has been very difficult to gauge exactly the scale of this assault on democracy.

Now, a post on the BBC News politics site, which in itself does not draw attention to the gerrymandering – has made the astonishing scale of what can only be considered rigging clear, if you do a bit of digging into the figures. Here’s the BBC’s graphic showing the totals of those who have been given a vote:

It appears that all contemporary motions to Labour conference calling for action to stop the purge have been ruled out of order as they do “not meet the criteria used by the CAC to determine if an issue is contemporary”.
If this isn’t reversed on appea,l it will mean that conference will have no opportunity to pass judgement on the behaviour of the Compliance Unit over the last month.
That will mean:
1) there will be no certainty that the recommendations of the Chakrabarti report on the handling of disciplinary matters by the Party will be implemented;
2) there will be no assured right of members or supporters, threatened with suspension/ expulsion or exclusion, to have a fair hearing and a right of appeal;
3) that the Compliance Unit may be able to continue to use disciplinary action as a factional weapon against their political opponents. The fight against the…